More than 425,000 children were treated for acute malnutrition across seven northern Nigerian states in 2025, representing a sharp increase in the country’s worsening child nutrition crisis, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has disclosed.
The affected states are Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Bauchi, Borno and Sokoto.
According to an MSF report titled Nigeria: Increased Malnutrition Crisis for Children and the Mental Health Strain for Caregivers, the 2025 figure increased by 41.8 per cent compared with the 300,165 children treated in 2024.
The organisation said the number had also risen by 25 per cent in 2024 from about 240,132 children treated in 2023.
MSF attributed the worsening crisis to a combination of insecurity, displacement, food shortages, disease outbreaks, economic hardship and declining humanitarian funding.
It also linked the reduction in funding to the withdrawal of support for major global health initiatives under the administration of United States President Donald Trump.
The organisation warned that the crisis had persisted into 2026, with an estimated 34.7 million Nigerians facing crisis levels of food insecurity during the current lean season.
It further estimated that more than 5.4 million children across Nigeria were suffering from acute malnutrition.
MSF currently runs nutrition programmes across the seven affected states, operating 12 Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centres and more than 30 Ambulatory Therapeutic Feeding Centres.
Between January and June 2025 alone, the organisation said 32,940 severely malnourished children were admitted to its inpatient centres, while another 136,255 received treatment through outpatient therapeutic feeding programmes.
Beyond the physical consequences, MSF said malnutrition was also taking a significant psychological and emotional toll on children and their caregivers, particularly mothers who frequently remain with their children throughout treatment.
According to the organisation, some caregivers spend between seven and 45 days at treatment centres, depending on the severity of their children’s conditions, leaving them separated from other children and family responsibilities.
“Malnutrition is one disease that doesn’t just affect the child physically. It has psychological, emotional and behavioural implications,” an MSF mental health supervisor in Bauchi, Kauna Bako, said.
In response, MSF has integrated mental health and psychosocial support into its nutrition programmes to address the broader impact of the crisis.
At its Nilefa Kiji nutrition facility in Maiduguri, Borno State, caregivers receive psychological first aid, individual counselling and group support, while children participate in structured play activities during treatment.
Similar interventions have also been introduced in Kano, Katsina, Bauchi and Zamfara, including physiotherapy, rehabilitation, play-based activities and sensorimotor stimulation.
MSF said its experience in Nigeria and neighbouring Niger showed that integrating mental health services with malnutrition treatment could improve recovery outcomes, including faster weight gain, shorter hospital stays and improved wellbeing among caregivers.
The organisation, however, stressed that the scale of the crisis requires sustained and broader interventions to tackle the underlying drivers of child malnutrition, particularly insecurity, food insecurity and dwindling humanitarian funding across northern Nigeria.
